Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - God and Son as One?
If your view of God can't fully explain and reconcile all of the passages about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, maybe, just maybe your view is wrong.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:So this one's a different one. This is ancient Arianism. I mentioned it earlier. It's also parallel to modern Jehovah's Day witnesses. Right, there's a presupposition here in their system too, and their presupposition is actually based on Greek philosophy. One of the ironies is that they charge Christians with getting the Trinitarian idea from Greek philosophy, whereas there is no Trinitarian idea in Greek philosophy. There's a dualism. There's a dualism Plato was projecting, as he looked at the world what we call the real world that there had to be some universal forms behind the things that we see in this world.
Speaker 2:Just take, for example, a triangle. Everybody knows what a triangle is. You've got various triangles, isosceles, whatever the idea was that Plato asked, and other philosophers at the time were struggling with, was can you make a perfect triangle? And so you get your pencil and paper out, let's say, and you're going to make the perfect triangle, 360 degree angle corners, and you say, oh yeah, it looks really good. But then you get a magnifying glass and you look closer and you see there are imperfections on the lines of the triangle because of the lead on your pencil and the imperfections in the surface of the paper, and so you realize it's really not perfect. The imperfections in the surface of the paper and so you realize it's really not perfect. And yet you have this thing that's a triangle, and Plato said well, this just imitates this real, the pure ideal triangle that must exist. So he said there's a world of these forms, which is this pure world that somehow exists, and it was just a mental projection of Plato. He says this world must exist. Okay, and that was where what he was really interested in and everything down here is we call it the real world, but everything you're seeing is just an imitation of this other world, this, this pure ideal world.
Speaker 2:So what happened was in Jehovah's Witnesses in ancient Arianism, named after a guy named Arius, was they projected this idea of God as the pure ideal, very similar to Plato's projections of this pure ideal world that must exist. And God is that pure ideal. That's their idea of God. So some of the conclusions that result from that are that jesus christ is begotten, which, by which they mean made, because we we know the word begotten that's used in the bible, right, it's in our translation. Question isn't isn't that? Is that word used in a translation, but what does it mean? They gave the meaning to begotten of made, meaning he was created. So jesus christ is created before time, they said, by the Father, and therefore Jesus Christ is a creature. God made Jesus Christ because he, as the pure ideal, could only communicate with the non-ideal real world that's down here with us through an intermediary being. So, jesus is like an intermediary between the pure ideal and us down here in the real world. As the son of the father, then he is less in essence. Okay, he is less in essence because he's a creature, he was created.
Speaker 2:So let's look at first corinthians 8 and now. Then I'm going to show you why this is very, very practical in I'm going to hammer on this one point, for pure practicality, of why the Trinity why we get this question right is absolutely critical for your whole life. Okay, I'm going to talk about marriage, but in a few weeks I'm going to actually talk about everything. Okay, about everything, how you view everything. So, when we solve the one and the many, this great philosophical problem that the only Christianity can resolve, problem of the one and the many.
Speaker 2:So in 1 Corinthians 8, 5 through 6, this was one of their main verses to try to show that the Son is less in essence than the Father. 8, 5, for even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one god, the father, from whom are all things and we exist for him, and one lord, jesus christ, by whom are all things and we exist through him. So they centered on that part of verse 6 where it says there's just one God. See, so Jesus can't be God. He has to be created by this one God. That's how they interpret this verse. Okay, is that the meaning of this verse? Is Jesus really less than God? Well, again, problems, right, and then we'll back up. Problems does not explain the Christ for Yahweh, name and function substitutions we could go every time. It doesn't explain that. It doesn't explain the deity of Christ passages and it doesn't explain why Jesus permits himself to be worshipped. Right, as we saw, this view also cuts us off from truly knowing God, does it not? Because Jesus is just an intermediary between God and us. He came to communicate something about God, but he's not God. So we really only know him partially, maybe through the intermediary, but we don't really know him because he never really came down here and dwelt among us.
Speaker 2:John 1.18. Let's look at John 1.18. Back to the Gospel of John. Lots of good stuff in the Gospel of John on this topic, john 1.18. Passage about the Word, the Word becoming flesh, all things being created by the Word. We'll look at things like that, john 1.18. John 1.18. No one has seen God at any time. Remember, moses was put in the cleft of the rock right so that he only saw God's back, which would just be the concept of a partial seeing of God, looking through a filter or something.
Speaker 2:The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father. And by that they mean these people are going to say we'll see, he's created. Begotten means made or created. The only begotten god who is in the bosom of the father. He has explained him. But see this word explained, x is is the greek word exegeted, which is the idea of drew out they. He drew out who he was. He also says later if you've seen me, you've seen who the Father. Now wait a minute. In other words, how am I understanding this word? He has explained him. Does that just mean he's an intermediary being, you know? And he gave us a glimpse of what God might be like. Well, that doesn't fit with this other passage that says if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Right, because that means no, he's not just giving us an idea, he's giving us exactly who the Father is.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. Under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.